Tag Archive | "Weight Loss Supplements"

Many weight loss supplements have entered the pharmaceutical market rather recently, and consumers have had an especially increasing desire to lose weight, and to do it as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Though everyone knows deep down inside that the key to weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight is through a good diet and proper exercise habits, we continue to look for ways that will allow us to lose more weight faster, with less effort on our parts. The result of this mentality is a myriad of weight loss supplements.

From the Pharmacy to the Health Food Store

In addition to bombarding pharmacies with various weight loss supplements, the health food stores are now making their own natural equivalents. This is because of the fact that many of the pharmacological supplements that were put on the market in the 80’s and 90’s were found to either have adverse side effects despite working well as weight loss supplements, or to not even have an effect as a weight loss supplement at all, and to still produce adverse side effects.

The most common side effect found that was found to come from these diet pills was that of an increase in heartbeat; a quickening of the heart that in some cases even led to cardiac arrest. Although this was rare in cases of typical proper use, it was found to be detrimental to the working of the body. The aerobics-doing, diet coke-drinking, diet pill-popping women of the 80’s and the 90’s are virtually gone. Their replacements are the yoga-practicing, water-drinking, dietary supplement-taking women of the new millennium.

The term dietary supplements sometimes refer to that of vitamins, but it can also refer more to that of weight loss supplements. These weight loss supplements are advertised to be all-natural, which for the uninformed consumer means ‘all-good’, however it is astounding the number of people who would not dare dream of taking an aspirin, but will then freely pop all-natural supplements without even batting an eye. The problem therein is that the FDA has tested and approved aspirin, but not the natural supplement.

The problem is that the FDA does not test these all-natural supplements, as in they don’t have to be tested and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in order to be sold. This means that the drugs themselves could quite easily have adverse effects that we don’t yet know about yet.

Although this is thought to be a somewhat unlikely idea that one of these all-natural weight loss supplements will be poisonous in and of itself, it is considered highly possible that the long-term effect of taking such supplements, especially in conjuncture with other medications and/or supplements could be highly risky. The main problem is that we don’t know because not enough research has been done to know all of the possible long-term effects and interactions with other supplements, drugs and foods.